12 February 1524
The Llanos de Urbina
Beyond the pass the army comes out onto open ground near Cantel. By local tradition the K'iche' army meets it here, on the Llanos de Urbina. Alvarado writes to Cortés that the Spanish wait until the K'iche' come close enough to shoot their arrows and then charge into them. The K'iche', who have never seen horses, are afraid, and he writes that many of them die.
The Llanos de Urbina, a plain near Cantel in QuetzaltenangoWikimedia Commons, Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Llanos de Urbina 01.JPG)
In the same letter Alvarado reports that one of the four lords of Q'umarkaj, the captain general of the country, is killed. He gives neither the lord’s name nor the manner of his death. Local tradition names him Tecun Uman and places his death on the Llanos de Urbina. The Título K'oyoi already describes the fight in terms close to the later legend.
In the legend Tecun Uman wears quetzal feathers and kills Alvarado’s horse, then falls to Alvarado’s lance. His spirit companion, a quetzal, lands on his chest and is stained red by his blood. Another account gives the killing blow to one of Alvarado’s men, a soldier named Argueta.
Actors as Pedro de Alvarado and Tecun Uman in a 2021 film of the Diario de Centro AméricaWikimedia Commons, Diario de Centro América, CC BY 3.0 (UmánVsAlvarado1.png)
The cavalry scatters the K'iche', and the army crosses the valley to Xelajú. It finds the town deserted.
Sources
- Pedro de Alvarado, third letter to Cortés, 11 April 1524.
- Matthew Restall and Florine Asselbergs, Invading Guatemala (2007), pp. 9, 30.
- Mariano Cornejo Sam, Q'antel (Cantel): patrimonio cultural-histórico del pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Cantel (2009), pp. 269 to 270.
Prev: The ambush in the passNext: The battle of Olintepeque